


Austria Felix

by gnostic_heretic



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Best Friends, Friendship, Historical, LGBTQ Themes, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Mentions of Suicidal Thoughts, Mythology References, Other, Overthinking, Possibly Unrequited Love, Pretentious Garbage, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character, Turn of the Century, i don't even know y'alls tagging this is hell, major character resurrection??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 11:13:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16428308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gnostic_heretic/pseuds/gnostic_heretic
Summary: I am Dido, the Queen of Carthage, nothing but desperately lovesick, lovesick, lovesick.





	Austria Felix

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Papillonae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Papillonae/gifts).



> Surprise! It's something sad! Again! I'm so sorry!  
> Just a small premise as usual, forgive any historical inaccuracies, this is set (loosely) at the end of the 19th century/beginning of the 20th in Vienna, capital of the (back then) Austro-Hungarian Empire.  
> Special thanks to Renae whose post about LietPol and distance inspired me so much... also a special sorry because I should've written something more happy while I was at it!

He stood still on the balcony of his apartment, gazing at the twinkling lights of the city and listening to the mayhem under his feet. It was an age of gold, of mundane _divertissement_ and splendour, and with such a lively night life Austria was truly the empire on which the sun never sets.

People came and went across the busy streets of Vienna, talking about the latest opera, play, or the prices of apples at this or that market— little did it matter, for their voices came up above as one and the same. A symphony of life that every city loved to sing; and Poland missed the song of his own land dearly, though he was growing used to the sounds of German more and more with each passing year.

The iron bars that separated his balcony from the open air felt cold on his hands, but he leaned on them all the same: a moment of risk, suspended between life and death, if only temporary.

Tense as marble, his blood rushed through him. The ground of Austria Felix was waiting to meet him with a thud below.

 _Stand still; just a shake and you might fall._ The thought sent a shiver down his spine, and a gust of wind gave him goosebumps. _Like a bird, ready to fly…_ but he was no bird, merely a human. Or was he?

He walked back inside, and placed a kettle of water on the stove, to make some tea and warm himself up for the night.

 

The tea was hot and he had to blow on it, just to find he would have to wait some more to have a sip.

Sprawled on the couch, he absentmindedly leafed through a newspaper. Boring, boring, boring.

 _Internal tensions in the Empire… Hungarian nationalism... no shit, what’s new!_ Another page reported a new film that would soon play into theatres, from no other place than Italy.

He thought that Felice might be pleased to know. Maybe he would even accept to go out with him and watch it soon...

 

In the quiet of his own apartment, Poland had switched his coat for a purple vest, lined with gold stitches and embroidered acanthus leaves, and his proper suit for silk pajamas. He forgot to take his earrings off, though, simple yet gorgeous drops of river pearls.

Silk and pearls and satin, a luxury that he could only afford thanks to Erzsébet, but a luxury all the same. The scent of the perfume she had bought for him and herself lingered on his wrists, somehow it reminded him of his old room. He must have owned something similar, at some point.

_If I close my eyes, I can pretend I'm in my own home in Warsaw, and the partitions never happened._

He took one earring from his lobe, into his hand, and looked at the way it glistened in the light. River pearls; but not a river like the Danube, no. More like ripples of water on a bucolic stream. The sunlight reflecting on the waves of the Nile.

 

_I am Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, dropping pearls into wine and drinking it all up. Eternally young, eternally beautiful, eternally damned._

He drank his tea all in one gulp and kicked his feet up in the air, leaning dramatically on the couch.

_That’s the spirit!_

For a moment he wished that the tea was wine. Perhaps he would pour himself a glass later… He put the empty cup and earring back on the small coffee table in front of him. A couple pages more, and the newspaper ended up sitting next to them.

 

Unlike Cleopatra, though, his own death had been unremarkable. There was no drama or beauty in that shivering blue mess. He had been a corpse in the snow, taken and dragged away by _Prussia_ , of all people.

_The glory of our victory at Grunwald and Tannenberg vanished in a single blow._

He wondered if Prussia had enjoyed the taste of his revenge. Then again, it was probably Lithuania’s corpse that he wanted, not his (and that was, perhaps, why he was so eager to get rid of him that soon).

 

But what good was it to think about it? It had been hundreds of years since Grunwald, the world had changed, they had all changed.

 

_God is dead!_

_Thus spoke Nietzsche, and everyone followed suit. God is dead, Gilbert! Yet I am alive. And between the three of us, Lithuania was right all along, after all._

 

The repeated thought, flickering memory of Lithuania and his face his voice his hands his being _his whole_ , it made Feliks’ cheeks flush. Tolys said he would visit him in a couple weeks for Christmas shopping; he felt his own heart pound under his breast, and he could scarcely keep his legs still.

 

_Love is such a sweet tension, isn't it? Don’t delude yourself, foolish, human body!_

 

It would just be a visit in _friendship_ , nothing more, and nothing more would happen.

He knew about this.

The agreement was silent, but clear as the terse morning sky.

 

Tolys would buy a present for Belarus and Estonia and Ukraine and Latvia and maybe even for Russia, and give Feliks the kind gift of a smile of contempt and an afternoon together with him, just for him.

The last time he had seen him (had it been two years? Three, maybe?) Tolys had touched his shoulder. What a gift!

It was more than Feliks could have asked or hoped for.

 

_I am Dido, the Queen of Carthage, nothing but desperately lovesick, lovesick, lovesick._

 

Feliks told himself that Tolys would have visited him more if it weren't for Russia, but he knew deep down that he was deluding himself.

Then again, if only he wanted, he could step on his own dignity and take the next interrail to Saint Petersburg. The only thing that stopped him was pride, or maybe stubbornness. It would be unacceptable for him to step into the home of those who defeated him, to meet his lover who did not love him anymore, to seek him like a desperate weeping fool.

 

_Love is such a subtle poison, isn't it? Don't delude yourself, foolish, broken heart._

 

He bit his lips until they were sore, bit back his feelings until they were gone.

The cacophony of his thoughts dissolved: the sweet songs of the city were back into the play that was his life.

Feliks grimaced, and went back to close the window before he retired to his bedroom.

He gazed at the street one last time, saw the lights of the Ringstraße one last time, the sun of the dawn of a new night.

 

He wondered why Russia and Austria had to be so distant. He wondered why Tolys had to be so hopelessly distant, he wondered why Tolys' written words did not have the sound of his voice.

 

He remembered the feeling of his hand on his own, his lips on his own, the sound of his heart and the scent of his skin that he’d taken for granted for so long.

Now, it was all gone.

He closed the windows, and bid his memories goodnight.

 

That night, he dreamed of the open sea and cloudless sky, blue and blue blending into the horizon. Endless and empty, and Feliks was naked, running against the wind for something he would never reach.

 

* * *

 

_I'll frame me wings of wax like Icarus,_

_And o'er his ships will soar unto the Sun,_

_That they may melt, and I fall in his arms._

 

* * *

 

When he reached the café, a place as crowded as it was peaceful, Erzsébet was waiting for him at their usual seat. Her face was hidden behind a newspaper, but her thick brown hair and the horse-riding jacket (when there was no horse to be seen) betrayed her presence all the same.

 

He noticed that the newspaper she was reading was written in Hungarian, and for some reason that made him smile.

_That's so like her. Looking for Hungarian news even here under Franz’s nose._

She had not even noticed him behind the thickly printed articles.

Feliks lowered the folded pages with his thumb and peeked at her.

“ _Boo_.”

“My _god_ , Feliks!” She rolled her eyes and gestured towards the empty chair next to her. “You could've just said hello, like any normal human being would.”

“Far from me to greet Her Royal Highness in such a _totally_ impolite manner.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you're insufferable?”

“Oh, but I love you too, Lady Erzsébet! Will you be my dame, and dance with me at the next waltz?”

Erzsébet laughed and closed her newspaper. “I fear my homosexual husband would be too jealous of my homosexual best friend.”

“Says the homosexual queen of Vienna.” Feliks would not accept any defeat at his own game of bantering. “You could invite Bohemia to the waltz. I think she wouldn't refuse you…”

“Ceško? Oh, come on now. The girl hates my guts.”

“Love and hate are one, more often than you might think.”

Erzsébet frowned. “I'll have you know that my agenda is full, thank you very much. Besides, dancing and listening to music has become tiresome. I'm thinking of moving to the mountains for a little while.”

A waiter walked by their table to take their order, a cup of plain black coffee for Erzsébet, a slice of chocolate cake for Feliks.

As soon as he left, they resumed their conversation.

“So if you're moving away, who will stay here with me to make my life less lonely? It's a pity.”

“You have Felice to come and go to the opera with you, if that's what you need. I've had an earful of sopranos, and I need some quiet. But if you want, you could come with me?”

The letter that Tolys had sent him came to his mind. A couple weeks; how long was Erzsébet planning to run away from Vienna? “I'd come with you,” he said, “but there's things I have to do.”

“Mhm.” Erzsébet rested her hands on her chin. “You know, if you will feel _lonely_ , you could come here with Felice, one morning. Grab a coffee, and then take him for a walk in the Stadtpark… along the blue Danube…”

She winked at him. “You know?”

Feliks sighed, and when his chocolate cake arrived, he took a huge bite out of frustration. “No, Erzsébet, I don't know. Are you trying to _suggest_ something?”

“I'm trying to _suggest_ ,” she said, sipping on her coffee, “that he seems to like you well enough, and he's not seeing anyone. Not that I know, but…”

“... but I'm not interested.”

“So you aren't.” She finished the cup with a gulp. “As Felice himself says… _chi è causa del suo mal, pianga se stesso_!”

Feliks stuck his tongue out. “Thank you very much, but I'm still not interested.”

 

When he thought about it carefully, it wasn't like Hungary was _wrong_. Italy was not a bad looking fellow; he shared his interests, his sense of humour, his and Hungary’s secret, and their romantic inclinations.

(Sometimes he thought it was ironic, almost in the nature of Nations; and that the Austrian court’s dismay and moral qualms made it all the more hilarious.)

So what exactly was holding him back? He expected Hungary to ask him the same question, and she promptly leaned forward to do just that.

“If I may ask you something personal,” she said, lowering her voice to a whisper, “is this because of Lithuania, still?”

 

Feliks knew the answer. However, he did not respond, and decided that looking at what was left of his cake that he didn't want to eat, and at the words on the newspaper that he couldn't read would be a good way to avoid giving said answer.

Erzsébet knew the answer too, however, and her proud and cocky gaze had turned into a look of understanding, or maybe pity.

At least, _pity_ was what Feliks read in it, and what he feared the most.

“Come on, don't give me that look.”

“I'm not giving you any look,” she said, “but Feliks, you can't spend your whole life waiting for him to come back. The commonwealth…”

“... the commonwealth is gone. I know it as much as you do. And we're both nothing but subordinates, Nations without a Nation that have lost everything.”

Erzsébet held his hand. “You haven't lost everything. Poland is an important region of the Empire, and Hungary will make sure-”

“ _Hungary_ ,” he cut her off, “has its own parliament, and is still whole.”

“That's why I have the power to do something, but you know how _he_ is.”

“All I know is that I don't know _what_ I am anymore.” Feliks sighed. He cast what was left of his cake aside. “Do you want to finish it? God, I'm sorry. I don't know why we ended up talking about politics again. I envy all those people sitting around us, you know.”

Erzsébet nodded and took the burden of finishing the cake.

_Wouldn't it be nice if you could take the burden of eternal life from me, too. Sometimes I wish I could be dead. I wish I could have stayed dead, that day in the snow._

Feliks shook his head. That wasn't exactly something that his friend would have wanted to hear. Or worse, maybe it was, and she would start psychoanalysing him on the spot- a prospect that made him bite back his thoughts once again.

“Anyway, Lithuania is visiting me in a couple weeks.” He did his best to muster up a forced smile. “Not all hope is lost.”

 

Erzsébet insisted to pay for both of their breakfasts, and Feliks joked that if she kept doing that, he would end up having to date her instead.

“Sorry, I’m not interested in short men who are still hopelessly hung up on their exes!”

Her laughter was contagious. It made him feel better, it made the dim sunlight brighter as they walked out of the café, into the cold and crowded street.

“You know, Feliks,” she said and brushed a stray ringlet of brown hair back into her hat, “if Lithuania is _really_ going to visit you, you better find a new perfume to wear. That way, he could never resist you… if you want to go shopping before I leave, this is your last chance!”

 

They picked a couple of matching bottles, warm with hints of citrus and sandalwood, and he could still smell it on Erzsébet when she hugged him goodbye at sunset.

He walked back towards his apartment along the beautiful, blue Danube, wondering when this delicate peace would end, and praying that it would last forever.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> The biggest thank you to everyone who read so far! Feedback is as always encouraged and cherished dearly!!  
> Just as a heads up, the three verses that divide the two parts (which are, if it wasn't obvious, in reverse chronological order- part 2 is the daytime before the night of part 1) were obviously not written by me, it's a quote from Christopher Marlowe's "Dido, Queen of Carthage".


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